


Under Different Circumstances

by MizukoMidori



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-08
Updated: 2011-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-16 04:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizukoMidori/pseuds/MizukoMidori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kids finally have an opportunity to meet the trolls, but it's not quite the joyous(?) reunion they thought it might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Different Circumstances

John wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up here... wherever here was. He just woke up after a particularly non favorable run in with Jack Noir. Remembering that, he sat up suddenly looking around for... Well for anything. Where he was, where his friends were, where Jack was. This was no longer the Land of Wind and Shade. Actually, it looked a lot like the lab where created the four of them, but without that specific bit of machinery. It looked pretty trashed too; broken glass everywhere, and mostly empty.

With a groan he stood up. His head...hurt? It did, but not as bad as he thought it should have. He didn’t feel dead either, and he was pretty sure he should be dead. That confrontation had not been going well. Rose had been running out of steam, and Dave, at that point he didn’t even have a clue what Dave was doing. He was busy trying to keep Jade alive.

They didn’t seem to be in this abandoned lab room though. Did they fail? Maybe this was some weird Sburb purgatory. That would make sense. John made a face at one of the desks. This was just perfect. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to fall in love with Rose and marry her like he was supposed to. Bluh.

Heaving a huge sigh he picked his way over the broken remains of beakers and whatever else, to the door on the opposite wall. He tried it carefully and it opened easily enough; it didn’t even dump a bucket of water on his head, which was admittedly a relief at the moment. He sort of felt like maybe he might just, kind of, cry, a little, if that happened. A little bit. Karkat had told him time and time again that he was the leader and leaders were absolutely the fuck not supposed to fucking cry. So John really did not want to cry.

As he stepped into the next room something whizzed passed his head and stuck in the wall behind him. He yelled and ducking throwing his hands up to cover his face. Holy cow! Who was throwing things at him, at a time like this?

“Oh. John. It is you. My apologies.”

“Rose!” Oh thank god!

Hurrying over to her he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, looking her over quickly. She seemed to be uninjured. Immediately he felt himself relax. At least one of his friends was still alive, and that was something. Maybe he and Rose were the only ones left and they would have to repopulate the whole human race? That’s a dumb thought, John, not the time. Maybe later. Especially since, getting a closer look at her he noticed her eyes were sort of red and puffy. She’d been... crying? (Honestly John didn’t think she was capable of crying.)

“Hey, hey. Rose, what’s wrong? Do you know where we are?”

She sniffed and without looking at him. “No. I have no clue where it is we are. All I know is Dave brought us here.”

“Dave? Aww yeah! I knew he was awesome, with all his cool time powers. Is he here?”

It took her a moment to answer and he could have sworn he heard a choked sound before she spoke. “He’s.... John, Dave sacrificed himself to bring us here.”

Oh.... Well....

Damn....

His hand dropped from her shoulder and once again he was holding back tears. Dave was his best best buddy. Sure, he could be mean, a little harsh sometimes, but he always came through. Apparently ‘till the end. Crap. He sat suddenly on the floor next to her feeling that his legs weren’t really supportive anymore.

“What about...” He couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Thankfully he didn’t have to. Rose shook her head, “I have not seen Jade. I don’t know if she is here or not.” She wiped idly at her face and took a deep breath.

John just nodded, unable to say anything else, and just focused on not crying. More so now that Rose was crying, or had been crying. But man, Dave sacrificing himself was almost too much to handle, and he thought he’d handled this whole session pretty well so far. If there was one thing he was sure of through all of this though, was that Jack Noir was going to pay. Big time.

\- - - - - -

“WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?” Karkat yelled for the tenth time in the last ten minutes.

He was pacing back and forth in front of his terminal, glancing back at the Trollian timeline every couple of seconds, like it suddenly might show something different. What it _was_ showing was nothing, nothing past a certain point for all four of the damn stupid kids. He could go back as much as he wanted and watch the last few minutes leading up to the nothing. This was worse than The Scratch. The Scratch at least showed _something_ on the timeline. Even if it was staticy and green. The last thing they’d seen was Jade getting knocked out of the sky and Dave diving after her. Then, just white nothingness.

 

“i’m n0t sure man, but calm d0wn. i can hear y0u pacing and i think i can taste y0ur anger.” Sollux frowned in his friend’s direction, but not exactly at his friend. He was still getting this blind thing down, it definitely was not as easy as Terezi made it look.

“T4ST3S D3L1SC1OUS...”

Terezi said it, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it. She was staring at the monitor forlornly. How many Dave’s had she seen die by now? Too many for her tastes. This time he might not come back either, and this was the main timeline, wasn’t it?

“We Have To Try And Keep Calm.” Kanaya said, also for about the third time, while taking deep breaths. “We Can’t Lose Our Cool Here. We Don’t Know Anything For Sure.”

“THE FUCKING FUCK!? ARE THEY FUCKING DEAD!? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SHITSTORM IS THIS!?”

“K4RK4T, W1LL YOU SHUT YOUR HOL3 ALR34DY!” Terezi rounded on her leader.

She marched toward him, unfolding her cane into it’s weapon form. She was sick of hearing him say the same thing over and over, and she didn’t want to think about it anymore. If they were dead, then they were dead, then they really were all screwed. No amount of yelling was going to change any of that.

When she reached him, she swung the transformed cane forward and he caught the end of it in his hand. Growling he pulled her forward, yanking the cane. He caught her up in his arms, and instead of fighting just held her there, tightly. Fuck. She clung to him even tighter and buried her face in his chest. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Karkat closed his eyes, a small line of red dripping out from beneath them. Fuck.

Sollux looked away from the whole mess. That was just awkward to... smell. He couldn’t be sure what exactly it was, but he could tell they were crying. Though, if he was being honest with himself, it was pretty upsetting. Even if he hadn’t been close to any of the humans, those kids had been their chance to escape maybe. Now it was pretty definite that Jack would find them eventually and slaughter them. The humans weren’t even able to create another universe so someone else could play the game. They really were doomed.

\- - -  
In a different room covered in posters of a certain Earth actor, another troll was curled up around her computer, blue streaks running down her face. God, she would never let anyone see her like this. She stared at the white timeline willing it to change, for anything, _anything_ to happen. Nothing changed.

Suddenly it was too much, too fucking much. She grabbed the computer and threw it against the wall with a scream. Violence was better then crying. There was no reason for her to be crying over these stupid wrigglers anyway. She didn’t give two shits about most of them. But John... She ripped one of the posters off the wall. She’d be pissed she desecrated Nick Cage’s holy figure later, but right now he was unimportant. Right now there weren’t enough posters to tear apart.

It was several minutes before she was able to stop destroying everything she touched. Instead she stood in the middle of her room breathing, wings shaking. She lifted a hand and wiped away the ridiculous tears. No more of that nonsense, none of it.

You know what, screw the humans! She could have challenged Jack herself. But noooooooo, she had to go and listen to John. Let them take care of it, they had it under control, they had a plan. So much for their fucking plan! She should have just challenged Jack when she thought about it the first time. These humans were so fucking incompetent!

With clenched fists she stalked toward the door.

\- - -

In yet another room there was a metal table laid out to one side. On top of it lay Nepeta Leijon, seemingly sound asleep, covered in an old, stained lab coat. It looked as if she was sleeping peacefully, but the truth was Nepeta hadn’t woken up in nearly three months, ever since Gamzee’s attack. She had somehow (they’d avoided using the word miraculously) survived, though barely, and not without serious consequences. Every now and then Kanaya would come in to check on her (and for fucks sake not drink her fucking blood), but for the most part this room was left alone.

There was a small groan from the far side of the table the cat-like troll was on. It would seem she wasn’t alone at the moment. Jade stood slowly, holding onto the edge of the table for support. Her head ached and... what was going on? This wasn’t John’s world? Unless John’s world has some creepy lab place that they got teleported too. Her hand touched something on the table and she squeaked and snatched it back, almost falling over backwards. Oh, it was just a sleeping girl. Jade certainly couldn’t complain about girls falling asleep in weird places.

Weird looking girl though. After a second she scooted closer to get a better look. Grey skin, funny clothes, and horns. It definitely was not one of the imps or any other carapace creature. Perhaps she was a troll. She reached out a hand to shake her awake, before thinking better of it. She knew she would hate being woken when sleeping so peacefully. The girl was probably having peaceful, happy dreams. Was she even a girl? Did troll genders correspond with human genders?

Jade shook her head. What was she even thinking about? There were more urgent matters to figure out, like where the others were. A quick scan of the room told her no one else was in it. She was almost certain she was still alive, which seemed like a miracle considering. The last thing she remembered was taking a direct hit from Jack/Bec. He had been aiming specifically for her. Like maybe he wanted to get rid of her first and foremost. Did that mean she was formidable? That would be pretty neat. She wouldn’t feel so helpless if that were the case.

After a moment of aimless surveying of the room her eyes landed on her Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles. Quickly scooping them off the floor she put them on. One screen was slightly cracked, but other than that they seemed to be working fine.

\-- gardenGnostic[GG] began pesterng carcinoGeneticist[CG]--

GG: hello  
GG: ???  
GG: karkat... you there...?  
GG: i’m not really sure where i am, but i think i’m not far from you!  
GG: … …  
GG: hello? karkat? helloooooo....

Jade didn’t like that he wasn’t answering. He was usually pestering her while she was busy, she’d just thought he had nothing better to do. It really shouldn’t make her feel so uneasy, but it did, and not knowing anything was driving her crazy.

Biting her lip she made her way toward the door. Staying in this room was getting her nowhere. Perhaps she would find more clues elsewhere.


End file.
